Week 12 Announcements (October 27-31)

Parents,

Many of you may have been wondering why a lot of graded work has not been sent home over the recent weeks. I apologize for not communicating clearly about this. Beginning this week, students will only bring home graded work home if it is below a 70%. If the student scores below a 60%, it will be required as a REDO grade. If you would like to have blank copies of what we are reviewing in class each week, please reach out to me and I can send home a packet. Please know that any time I hand out something in class, we review and discuss it the same day so that students can see what the correct answer is and why.

 Reading

Last week we talked mostly about making inferences while we read. Towards the end of the week, we transitioned into Main Idea in fiction (which is what we will be covering this week). This is how we discussed it.

 

Main Idea can be found by asking these two questions:

• What is the text or story is mostly or mainly about?
• What is the author trying to tell or show the reader?

In order to draw conclusions about main idea, students have to find supporting details. Supporting details are the Most Important details in a story. Oftentimes, when discussing a story, students pull out the small details. We want them to look at the big picture by combining important events and details of a story. If you’re watching TV, reading a book, or listening to a song, be sure to ask your student, “What is main idea?” and “What do you think the main idea is in this ?”

 Writing

 

Last week we published our stories of a time we got in trouble. This week, we are going to look at how STAAR scores papers. STAAR scores papers on a 1-4 scale, with 1 being the lowest grade and 4 being the highest. This week we will review good student samples and talk about “must haves” in our writing. One day this week, as part of writing on demand, students will write a fictional scary story!

 

WRITING CONVENTIONS:

 

Last week we covered simple and compound sentences. We will continue creating compound sentences and move into dependent/independent clauses.

Sight Words

 

As writers, it is important to describe in detail when something is happening. With that in mind, we plan on introducing adverbs to help enhance the actions of stories! An adverb helps to describe how an action is being done. For example: Shelby finished her homework quickly! Remember parents that we will have to spell and use our sight words correctly in a sentence.

 

swiftly

nervously

politely

anxiously

reluctantly

loosely

courageously

recklessly

violently

Tutoring

 Parents, beginning this week, I will host tutoring sessions on Tuesdays and Wednesdays ONLY from 3:45pm to 4:45pm. I will only be allowed to have 4 students on each day, so I will contact students’ parents in regards to tutoring. If you are interested in tutoring, please contact me. I will no longer host tutoring sessions in the mornings, but if your student arrives before 7:15am, he or she can come up to the room to work on reading, writing, or any homework.

Bridging the Gap

 Like always, parents, if you ever need anything, please do not hesitate to call or text me at 214-517-3793. Remember to follow what’s happening on twitter @goingplaces303. Also, we have a classroom blog. Student work, updates and other info will be posted at http://goingplaceslife-school.blogspot.com.  

 

Staying in the Loop

 

Parents, please remember to join the remind101 group by texting @4b2n to (319) 774-3341.

Week 11 (October 20-25) Announcements

Parents,

I apologize for not sending home weekly announcements last week. One of my classes only saw me on Thursday and Friday, so I figured it wasn’t fair to require reading logs/sight word quizzes. I told the students to consider it their week off. Last week (and the beginning of this week), we are working on using commas in a series, commas with conjunctions, and commas with introductory clauses. Be sure to ask your students, “What is the function of a conjunction?” or “What is a fanboy?” See what they say! We’ve also been talking about making inferences in our reading. There are two things required to make an inference--see what your student says! This week, we will continue with commas and inferences. We plan to publish our stories of “A time you were in trouble” this week. Our last round of stories were great, but these will be even better. I am extremely proud of all of your students; they have been pushing themselves extremely far and are making great progress.

Sight Words

As writers, it is very important to vary our vocabulary as we write. As we get deeper into the world of writing and use dialogue, students should no longer be using pre-k words like told and said, and move towards these instead!

replied

responded  

muttered

mentioned

mumbled

whispered

shouted

yelled

exclaimed

whined

screamed

squawked

Raise the Rigor

As the year moves on, and we “raise the rigor” in Room 303, we will move sight word work out of the classroom and make it part of homework. In order for students to prepare for higher grades, it is important that they understand the importance of putting in extra hours of practice in order to be great.

Also, soon we will make writing one story per week a component of homework. More details on that to come!

Bridging the Gap

Like always, parents, if you ever need anything, please do not hesitate to call or text me at 214-517-3793. Remember to follow what’s happening on twitter @goingplaces303. Also, we have a classroom blog. Student work, updates and other info will be posted at http://goingplaceslife-school.blogspot.com.

Week of October 6-10 Updates and Reminders

Happy Monday!

Parents, from now on, reading logs will have weekly announcements attached to them so that we can communicate more often of what is happening in Room 303! Weekly announcements will include the reading and writing skills we’ll be covering throughout the week, the week’s sight words, and any announcements or updates that need to be shared.

Raising the Rigor

Reading Logs

When we reach our goals in Room 303, we “raise the rigor.” We are going to continue raising the stakes this week by enforcing that every day’s reading log be signed by a parent, guardian, or witness. Holding our students accountable for their learning will reinforce positive habits and instill an appropriate work ethic for what it means to truly work hard. There are 1440 minutes in a day. If our students are reading for 15 minutes per day, they are spending approximately 1 percent of their day reading. We can afford 1 percent in order to grow our brains! Furthermore, to engage our students and deepen their learning, be sure to ask questions about what their reading, or even better have them read to you! Most importantly, remember that reading logs are an easy 100 if completed and submitted!

Sight Words

In many classrooms, sight words are simply spelling words. Students are asked to memorize the spelling of the words and are quizzed weekly. In Room 303 we make sure our sight words are relevant to what we are learning throughout the week. This week we are going to raise the bar by making sure that we can not only spell the word but that we can also use them correctly in complete sentences. We will work our way towards including definitions as well as listing antonyms and synonyms. As the year progresses we will extend the time for studying sight words to two weeks in order to give students the proper preparation time.

 Tutoring

Parents, beginning this week, if your student arrives at school between 6:30-7:15am, he or she will be able to attend tutoring. If you feel that your son or daughter needs extra time, or you already arrive to school early, please feel free to contact me about coming in early. Students will have to be escorted into the building, so please text 214-517-3793 if you or your student is interested.

Chalk Talk

This week we will be reviewing subject and predicate from last week and connecting it to identifying complete and incomplete sentences. In regards to writing, we will take our 5 senses brainstorming map from last Thursday and create our rough draft. Our hope for the week is to draft, revise, publish and share our stories with each one another.

Pen Pals

Be sure to ask your students about their new Pen Pals! Each student now has a 7^th-grade student and 1st-grade student that he or she will be writing at least once a week. We’ve decided to attach our published stories to these letters so that we are all writing with audience in mind! Studies show that when students know their writing will be read by an audience they become more invested and passionate about the process.

State Fair Field Trip

Parents, I want to thank all of you that turned in field trip forms on Thursday and all of you who have volunteered to be chaperones. Our response rate was only about 20 students so we may not need as many parents as we originally thought. However, if you would still like to volunteer (or simply attend), please look for more information early in the week.

Staying connected

If you are not already, please follow what’s happening in the classroom via Remind101 and twitter.

Remind 101  

To receive weekly text message updates, please text @4b2n to (319) 774-3341

Twitter

Be sure to follow Room 303 on Twitter: @goingplaces303

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please call/text @ 214-517-3793

 

Thanks and have a great week!